The Australian Wine Research Institute

Identifying and securing new market opportunities through consumer insights

Project summary

A better understanding of why consumers choose and repurchase particular wines allows production of wines with particular characteristics, both sensory and non-sensory, tailored for specific market segments. This project will build on work conducted at the AWRI over the past five years that demonstrated the stylistic preferences of consumers in key markets such as China and Australia and led to the design of new products tailored to the Chinese market. It will:

• provide technical support to consumer insight and market access projects undertaken by organisations such as Wine Australia;
• assess the consumer response to chemical compounds in wine as well as treatment effects such as degree of ripeness and alcohol levels;
• build a knowledge base that links wine composition with sensory and consumer preferences using classical analytical and comprehensive metabolomics approaches; and
• evaluate consumer response when assessing wines blind compared to when informed of wine identity, and the relative impact of ‘information cues’, ‘extrinsic cues’ and product composition on purchasing behaviour.

Drawing on opportunities for new products or styles made available under this project and others (e.g. from Wine Australia), this project will also seek to assist industry to identify how such products can be made and how Australia can build and protect these new brand categories.